Only half joking! ;)
However, I am more than happy to say goodbye to this year and get on with it.
It was the year we had our precious Breaker Blue, we had a great time in Utah, including some fun trips and exploring, we went on vacation and spent time with family, we bought a beautiful home and are settled back in Kentucky. We learned and grew and became wiser and gained perspective.
I can say with confidence that I am a better, kinder, more understanding, more forgiving, more appreciative person at the end of this year than I was at the beginning. Thats a lot of growing, which is what life is all about...but it just means I went through a lot of stuff to get here.

The beginning of this year was hard, I was super pregnant, the most miserable pregnancy I've had, I literally felt like I couldn't make it through the day. Breaker's birth was hard on me. March through July were really good. I had so much energy purely from NOT being pregnant. Breaker was such an easy baby and so wonderful to bring into our family. The summer months we did a lot of traveling, which I love. We went to Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Hilton Head. There were 2 weeks in August that were absolutely terrible for me. Joey was gone for about 2 weeks straight for work and flying to Kentucky to interview for the job here. I was alone in Utah with three kids and absolutely miserable. It was so hard.
THEN September 1st came and it just all went downhill from there. The worst and hardest thing that has ever happened to us happened, Rhonda's death. And ever since then its just been hard. Watching my husband go through his own grief, and having to deal with so much other $h*t on top of it, is terrible.

What we thought was going to be one of the best times of our life, moving back to Kentucky, to a town where we will send our kids to school and sign them up for soccer and really be settled here for the long term, moving into such a great house...its all just been chaos instead and its hard to really enjoy anything.

I have a ton of blog posts planned for January...all posts I had planned for December but then the Christmas - New Years week was too crazy to do anything.
Is it just me or has this holiday season been the worst timing ever? Everything has happened on a weekend. Please just give us holidays on a Thursday so that we can have an entire "off" week instead of it feeling like a super busy weekend and no time to recover before the next holiday on a weekend!

Christmas morning, for the second year in a row, the boys ran into the living room without us realizing and we completely missed their initial reactions :(
Joey had to work that morning, just for a bit, and had snuck out early while the boys were still asleep. As soon as he left, Breaker woke up, so I went to his room and as soon as I sat down with him I hear the pitter patter of little feet running. I ran out of Breaker's room and Major was like, "MOM! A motorcycle!!" Sweet boy. I hate that we didn't get to see his face first thing! Also, trying to convince 2 little excited boys to wait on their daddy and stay in our bedroom for two hours was SUPER FUN on Christmas morning ;)

Here is Shepherd's face as he unwrapped "THE POLAR!"

And again with another train set. This boy loves his trains!

Major loves motorcycles!

I did a terrible job of documenting our day. We hosted our entire families, both Joey's side and my side. We had a big lunch and opened presents together.

Opening gifts!

I could cry in shame of not getting one single picture of my baby opening gifts. He slept through our Christmas morning, and the rest of the day was a blur. My poor 3rd child!! He was still the cutest and happiest baby, even if his mom didn't document it. Even this picture was stolen from my sister in law!

Major got some toy guns for Christmas, and he keeps sneaking up on me with his "grumpy face" and saying, "Its too late," before he shoots me. LOL. I have no idea where he comes up with this stuff. Occasionally he'll mix in, "Thats. It."
I almost put this story on Instagram, but I worry about him going on a watch list or something. ;)

Breaker Bug, as we all call him, is just the most perfect baby!
He has FINALLY started sleeping better at night. He went from waking up hourly, for months, to now waking about 3 times a night. He goes to bed around 7:30-8, depending on what his brothers are doing. He wakes up and nurses back to sleep around 10ish, 12ish and 6ish. And he's been sleeping until around 9:30 each morning! Hallelujah!
He has his own room and this month started sleeping in his big boy crib. He had been in the co-sleeper next to our bed.
Depending on what time he wakes up, he usually goes down for a nap an hour or 2 after he wakes up.
Then around 1:30, and a cat nap around 5:30. First two naps are about 1.5-2 hours, third nap about 45 minutes.
He goes to sleep easily at night, nursing right to sleep and I lay him in his bed a little bit drowsy.

This chunky guy is wearing 12-18 month clothes. He really needs 18 month pants, especially, to go around that big belly! The doctor said he's in about 30th % for height and 80th % for weight. Or something like that.

He has been loving eating solids. He eats 3 "meals" a day, usually 1.5 jars of baby food. His favorite is breakfast when he usually has bananas mixed with oatmeal and breast milk to thin it out.

He's started clapping and loves when we clap with him. He crawls all over the house. He loves to whisper "dadadada" to himself. Its so funny.

He is obsessed with Mommy. I think it could be the nursing ;) but I swear he would crawl to the ends of the earth to get to me. If he's not right next to me at all times, he's crawling to try and get to me. He wants to be right on me at all times. I've said I think he would just crawl back into my belly if he could.

A drink stop is an odd thing to have on a bucket list, but here we are. You always hear about "Dirty" drinks on the Mormon mommy blogs, and I wanted to see what they were talking about.

Swig is a little "fast food" place that as far as I can tell serves only drinks and cookies. I REGRET TO TELL YOU I DID NOT TRY A COOKIE. I don't think I'll get over it, because I see people go on about them all the time on Instagram.

Anyway. I had to ask the guy working how to order and what a "dirty" drink was.

It is a drink with added coconut flavor to it!

So I ordered one and...I hated it. So gross. I gave it to Major. Because thats what responsible parenting looks like. Give your two year old a sugary caffeinated beverage, when they haven't napped and you're out in public, at a theme park, no less.

Anway, so there you have it. $6 spent on "dirty" cokes and a big ol check off my bucket list.

Joey has been working on painting everything white. It is taking nothing short of FOREVER. But before he painted, I decided to put some Bible verses on the walls. I like knowing that they're there, even though you can't see them. I feel like it adds a layer of protection on our home.

In the dining room, Proverbs 24:3-4

"By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches."

As soon as you walk in the front door, 1 Samuel 25:6

"And thus you shall greet him: 'Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have."

I also painted all of our names at the front door, along with "#4 and #5" because you just never know!

I'll probably paint more verses in the boys rooms and the master, but we are nowhere near close to getting those rooms in order!